WRITER: Somruedi Banchongduang
Line BK, one of Thailand’s first digital banking platforms, has spent years developing its data analytics capabilities to better identify borrowers and ensure loans are extended to the appropriate customers.
Line BK began offering digital banking services in October 2020. During its first year of operation, the platform faced a large number of borrowers with relatively high credit risks, said Tana Pothikamjorn, chief executive of Kasikorn Line Co, which operates the Line BK platform under a collaboration between Kasikornbank (KBank) and Line Corporation.
According to Mr Tana, Line BK focused on serving unserved and underserved groups as its customer segments comprised both creditworthy and less-qualified borrowers. Less-qualified customers may lack the ability to repay, <a href="https://bitcomme.com/asu-system-earns-financial-reporting-award-for-14th-year/” title=”ASU System Earns Financial Reporting Award for 14th Year”>financial discipline, or willingness to repay their debts.
“For the first year of operation, we acknowledged that our data analytics capabilities were not strong enough and we were seeing a flood of high-risk customers,” he said.
For example, Line BK approved loans for three out of 10 applicants, but two of those borrowers would be unable to service their debts. At the time, the company could not determine the reasons behind their failure to repay.
As part of its efforts to test and develop its technology capabilities, Line BK also allowed low-quality borrowers, including those with no credit records with the National Credit Bureau (NCB), to borrow
The company worked to improve its technology, data analytics, loan growth and asset quality during this period.
Mr Tana said Line BK has helped to bring informal borrowers into the formal financial system, while enabling borrowers with no NCB records to build credit histories.
The company adopted this approach to promote financial inclusion and improve financial discipline among these borrower segments.
However, developing alternative data analytics and learning customers’ financial behaviour takes time, he noted.
Line BK used alternative data through KLine Score from the first day of operations. KLine Score combines data from KBank with data from Line users, who currently number around 56 million in Thailand.
Utilising Line’s data lake, the company can analyse the behaviour of individual users and estimate their level of financial discipline.
Line BK continues to improve the accuracy and capabilities of its system, as a large number of loan applications are still rejected.
“There have been around 10 million applicants for Line BK loans, and we have approved roughly 1 million,” said Mr Tana.
“This means around 9 million applicants remain unable to access our loans, which shows our current capabilities are still not smart enough to identify creditworthy borrowers.”
If government authorities implement an open-data approach, he said it could strengthen data analytics capabilities and support digital lending, financial inclusion and financial discipline across the entire financial system.
Line BK expanded and stabilised its business over 5-6 years, maintaining asset quality at a satisfactory level since its second year of operation, said Mr Tana.
The company reduced its credit cost to around 10% from around 20% during its first year of operation.
Line BK began generating a net profit in 2025. In the first half of 2026, the number of Line BK users reached 8.8 million, up 12% year-on-year. Of these users, around 930,000 were loan customers, an increase of 15% year-on-year, with total outstanding loans of 29 billion baht.
The company plans to grow its loan business cautiously, in line with economic conditions and using a responsible lending approach, he said. Over three years, Line BK wants to expand its lending customer base to 2 million and increase its total loan portfolio to 50 billion baht. However, the actual pace of growth will depend largely on economic conditions, said Mr Tana.
